Mennonite Central Committee

MCC to send trauma counselors to areas hit by tsunami

January 12, 2005

As Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) workers report on the ongoing psychological trauma suffered by survivors of the Dec. 26 tsunami, MCC is preparing to train trauma counselors in Indonesia, India and Sri Lanka.

MCC will send three experienced trauma counselors to affected areas to train groups of local people to attend to the psychological needs of tsunami survivors.

Karl and Evelyn Bartsch of State College, Pa., will go to the devastated Indonesian province of Aceh. The Bartsches, who each have clinical counseling practices, served terms with MCC in South Korea and South Africa, where they trained counselors to work with victims of Apartheid-era violence. A manual they wrote in South Africa on trauma counseling training in cross-cultural settings has been translated into several languages.

Carolyn Heggen of Corvallis, Ore., is a psychotherapist who recently served a term with MCC in Nepal, training schoolteachers and trauma counselors to work with victims of war. Heggen will train trauma counselors for two months in India and Sri Lanka.

Additionally, an MCC partner organization, West Bengal Volunteer Health Association, is doing health assessments and trauma counseling on India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal. MCC is supporting the project with $13,300 Cdn./$11,000 U.S.

MCC assessment teams are continuing to work in Sri Lanka, India and Indonesia, where MCC is responding with more than $4.2 million Cdn./$3.5 million U.S. in relief and recovery work in areas affected by the tsunami.

MCC Indonesia co-representatives Dan and Jeanne Jantzi reported from a Jan. 6 visit to the devastated Aceh province that the loss of life has overwhelmed the ability of communities to mourn the dead.

Evelyn Bartsch says that, although the scale of this disaster is overwhelming, healing can begin with the simple act of sharing one's experience with someone who cares.

"To listen to the story — I think that is universal," she says.